The Etymology of Slang Sexual Terms

The word horny "sexually
excited, lecherous" derives from an interesting yet not surprising
source. As early as the mid-18th century, an erection was known as
a horn or the horn, simply because it looked a bit like one.
James Joyce even used the term in his Ulysses. From there,
any man having the horn was called horny, and this is
first recorded in 1889. It was surely in use long before then, as
the horn probably was. It often takes some time for lewd slang
to make it into the written record.

OTHER SEXUAL TERM(S)
PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED:

Pussy as a slang term
for the female pudenda is thought to derive ultimately from Low German
puse "vulva" or Old Norse puss "pocket, pouch". It
didn't arise in English with a sexual meaning until the 19th century,
but prior to that it had been used to refer to women in general (16th
century). It has since also come to mean "effeminate, feeble, or
homosexual men or boys" (20th century).

A reader has asked about the
word cunt, wondering
if it had something to do with "cunning" as in "a cunning woman was a
negative thing". It has nothing to do with cunning (which
is related to the verbs ken and can) and everything to do
with what it means today: "female genitalia". It first shows up in
a list of London street names of about 1230. That street name was,
interestingly,
Gropecuntelane, one of a warren of streets and alleyways all given
over to the lowest forms of prostitution and bawdry. It lay
between Aldermanbury and Coleman Street (where the Swiss Bank stands
today) and it belonged to one "William de Edmonton". Curiously,
medieval Paris had a street name with an identical meaning - Rue
Grattecon.
Oxford and York apparently also had similar versions of that street
name.

Cunt is believed to
derive from a Germanic root *kunton "female genitalia", which
also gave rise to Old Norse kunta (ancestor of Norwegian and
Swedish dialectical kunta and Danish dialectical kunte),
Old Frisian, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch kunte, and the
English doublet quaint.
And, by the way, the word wasn't always considered derogatory, even
though it is today. Be careful about assuming that a word's modern
connotations must have governed its formation. By the way, no
connection has been made between the Germanic words and Latin cunnus.
The proto-Germanic root of cunt is ku- "hollow place",
while the Indo-European root of Latin cunnus is (s)keu-
"to cover, to conceal", the etymological meaning of cunnus
being "sheath".

Poontang
is an interesting word. It is so far removed linguistically from
what it means in English that Melanie's grandmother taught Melanie and
her siblings and cousins a rhyme when they were young that goes like
this:

Grandma was (and
is!) a God-fearing, proper woman, and she would never teach her
grandchildren something lewd or bawdy. She probably learned the
verse as a senseless rhyme when she was a child. This smacks
strongly of a folk etymology formed by people who did not understand the
term poontang. If that's what it is, the couplet indicates
that the term poontang has been around for some time -- Grandma
was born in 1909! Interestingly, the first example of the word in
writing is from 1929. That's not surprising, as a writer would
have had to be mighty brave to record that word before it had become
common and lost some of its edge.

What exactly
does poontang
mean? It has several meanings: a woman as a sex object, sexual
intercourse, and probably the ultimate meaning, female pudenda. So
where did such a bizarre-sounding word come from? There are
several theories. Probably the most popular is that it derives
from Louisiana (and standard) French putain
"whore". This is possible as most people we know who are familiar
with the word are from Louisiana or some state nearby, or they first
heard the word from a citizen of that area. However, the
connection to putain is based mostly on conjecture, because of
the similarity of the French word to the English one. Some
etymologists specializing in slang think that the word more likely
derives from a Chinese language, as there are variant forms like poon
tai
and poon kai. One school has it coming from some Filipino
language, while Eric Partridge guesses it is of American Indian origin.

Oh, we found it amusing to learn that the
following statement is widely attributed to John F. Kennedy immediately
after he was elected president in 1960: "I guess this means my poon
days are over."

*Some
variations are Puddin' Tame and, Puddin' Tain. We thought Grandma was
saying "Puddin' Tang" and believe that was influenced by the popularity of
the powdered orange drink "Tang" at the time (late 60s/early 70s).